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Comment Re:Barnes bullets must love this (Score 2) 780

by rsmoody (#44488711) Attached to: NRA Launches Pro-Lead Website
They are great bullets. Keep up with the effort by the ATF to have such bullets reclassified as armor piercing? Seems if you are a conspiracy theorist, you would say the government is trying to ban guns by making lead ammo illegal claiming it's toxic and then having all other ammo classified illegal by calming it's armor piercing. No ammo, no gun.
Hardware Hacking

If You're Going To Kill It, Open Source It 245

Posted by timothy from the get-some-goodwill-for-your-investment dept.
ptorrone writes "MAKE Magazine is proposing big companies like Cisco and Sony consider 'open sourcing' their failed or discontinued products. The list includes Sony's AIBO and QRIO robots, IBM's Deep Blue chess computer, Ricochet Wireless, Potenco's Pull-Cord Generator, Palm, Microsoft's SPOT Watch, CISCO Flip Camera and more. MAKE is also encouraging everyone to post about what products they'd like to see open sourced."

Comment Shoe stretching tools... (Score 1) 615

by rsmoody (#35070032) Attached to: Do Tools Ever 'Die?'
My grandfather owned a shoe store in a small town. He had all sorts of tools used to stretching shoes, making a dimples for corns and some others that quite frankly looked like some sort of medieval torture device. That I know of, after the store closed, they disappeared. *sigh* They remind me of my grandparents, I miss seeing them, the tools and my grandparents. Perhaps they are still used in shoe repair stores and mom & pop shoe stores.

Comment Re:I can see plenty of uses for it. (Score 1) 557

by rsmoody (#29815191) Attached to: Apple Blurs the Server Line With Mac Mini Server
I HAVE SEEN plenty of uses for this. I did IT at a small news paper and when I first started, we had 3 or 4 Ruby iMacs acting in server roles. They were finally replaced with MacMini's. However, these did not require OSX Server for their purpose, but for tasks such as moving wire streams, file conversions, getting files to and from the image adjustment servers, etc. they really were perfect for the task. For instance, we setup an old dual G5 for a file server role for dropping articles with OSX Server...if and when that system dies, the need for a rack-mount server or MacPro is over-kill for 80 or so users, MacMini however...perfect. There are many light duty server roles like this that a Mini running OSX Server would be useful and cost effective.

Comment Re:Brazilian Ethanol [Re:Don't blame me] (Score 1) 894

by rsmoody (#28091141) Attached to: The Great Ethanol Scam
Sure, id doesn't add much to the cost, however, when was the last time you saw any publicly traded company not be as cheap as possible? Even if it only costs about $10 to $100 to make the vehicle E85 compatible, they are not about to absorb that cost over thousands of vehicles. Hell, what would it have cost for Sony to keep an IR port on the PS3? 10 cents? As it is now, you must use either a controller or the Sony bluetooth remote (granted Logitech as an adapter out now for $60, substantially more than a .10 IR port) How much more did it cost for them to have a fully backwards compatible PS3? An extra $1? How about an HDMI chipset that could bit-stream audio? An extra $1? Do you really think car companies are any different?
Emulation (Games)

DOSBox Sees Continued Success 271

Posted by Soulskill from the but-does-it-have-xp-mode dept.
KingofGnG writes "DOSBox, the emulator designed to run DOS games on modern operating systems (and not necessarily on a PC), has been chosen as project of the month for May on SourceForge. It's the latest award granted to a piece of software that 'simply does what it is supposed to do,' as the authors say. After having amassed more than 10 million downloads, it will soon be getting an update that's been awaited for almost two years."
Software

OpenOffice.org 3.0 Is Officially Here 284

Posted by CmdrTaco from the who-needs-office-anyway dept.
SNate writes "After a grinding three-year development cycle, the OpenOffice.org team has finally squeezed out a new release. New features include support for the controversial Microsoft OOXML file format, multi-page views in Writer, and PDF import via an extension. Linux Format has an overview of the new release, asking the question: is it really worth the 3.0 label?"
United States

Submission + - Running trail mistaken for bioterrorism threat (msn.com)

Submitted by feuerfalke
feuerfalke writes: A flour-and-chalk trail marked out by Daniel Salchow and his sister Dorothee for their running club, the Hash House Harriers, sparked fears and evacuations Thursday night, and now the siblings are finding themselves in deep trouble with New Haven police. Police were called after they were spotted sprinkling "powder" in the parking lot of an IKEA furniture store, which was later evacuated. The "powder" was, in fact, flour, which the siblings have used plenty of times before, all across the country, to mark trails for their club. The Salchow siblings are now facing felony charges, and New Haven police seek "restitution" for the resources wasted in their mistake. This sounds familiar...
Microsoft

Submission + - Vista prevents users from playing high-def content (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "The restrictive content protection rules in Windows Vista still prevent users from playing high-definition content, more than half a year after the operating system's release, researcher Peter Gutmann said at USENIX this week. The specifications are intended to protect Hollywood copyrights, but even home movies can be blacked out by Vista because camcorders are increasingly becoming capable of shooting in HD. And that's not the only problem: Vista content protection requires so much extra encryption that system performance is being harmed significantly, Gutmann says. Since Vista lacks numerous security features that could protect users from online attacks, Gutmann wonders why Microsoft seems more intent on protecting the rights of Hollywood than the rights of its customers."
Wii

Submission + - Wii Update Kills off Freeloader/SD Media Launcher

Submitted by
Croakyvoice
Croakyvoice writes: "The latest firmware update for the Nintendo Wii has dealt users a double blow, Gamesindustry report that Freeloader which enables you to play import Gamecube titles on the Nintendo Wii is now unusable, Wii-News have also revealed that the SD Media Launcher which is a way of legally playing Gamecube homebrew on the Wii has also suffered the same fate. Nintendo have responded by saying that because it isn't an official product approved by Nintendo, there was nothing it could do."
Sony

Submission + - SOE Fires CS Executives - Ships CS to India

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Its no great secret that SOE and other game companies utilize the Indian outsource model to handle QA and CS functions. We have it on good word that SOE has decided to take any last smidgen of decency and throw it to the wind by opting to send their entire support organization to India and more specifically the IEnergizer group out of Delhi. By releiving their VP of CS in San Diego this week the deal seems final. In an era when most companies are pulling back their operations from across the globe because of poor quality mainly due to employee churn and general lack of game acumen it seems the Smed and Co. are trying to eeck out the last penny. One would think that with all the new titles on SOEs roster they might actually want to take care fo their paying customers and give them high quality support?? Hello is anyone listening...a quick perusal of the boards will tell you exactly whats going on.....Can you spell S U R V E Y...? I used to play SOE games but since the adoption of the outsourcers it became just unbearable. My requests would be bounced around like a stripper on Friday night... 3 or 4 times until it finally landed in the queue of an domestically based CSR. Now even that ray of hope has been clouded out. Kudos Smed........

Feed Engadget: San Francisco pulls the plug on Google / Earthlink's citywide WiFi... for now (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Networking

It looks like the people of San Francisco are going to have to wait a little bit longer before they can spam their friends with memes while sitting in the middle of Golden Gate Park. The WiFi blanket deal which would see Google and Earthlink teaming up to deliver a citywide network to the Bay-area has ground to a halt after a round of somewhat "unfriendly" statements from Earthlink concerning the plans. David Noyola, speaking on behalf of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (which has been overseeing the project) said that the network's rollout has stalled "in the shadow of comments," made last week by Rolla Huff, the internet provider's CEO, who expressed reservations over municipal wireless deals. Breaking points in particular seem to be the city's request for changes in data speed and privacy controls, and its desire to downsize Earthlink's contract on the network from 16 years to eight (significantly reducing the company's time to earn a profit). The internet provider now claims that they are doing a "detailed review," of their business model regarding the project, which the company says will not provide "an acceptable return." Obviously a lose-lose situation for the laptop-toting citizens of the City by the Bay.

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